


Big Deal

by cailures



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-08-10 03:43:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7829173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cailures/pseuds/cailures
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day the first would-be defector turned up on the base at D'Qar, they got Finn immediately. At least, that's what they told him. Finn couldn't be sure that they weren't trying to humour him: he'd been feeling useless and listless since he woke up from the Bacta-coma they'd had him in. He was on the run from a force that had managed to destroy three planets in the blink of an eye, but somehow there was never anything for him to do until Finn found himself gazing through a two-way mirror at a utilitarian-looking table and a young woman claiming asylum from the First Order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Big Deal

**Author's Note:**

> For #4

The day the first would-be defector turned up on the base at D'Qar, they got Finn immediately. At least, that's what they told him. Finn couldn't be sure that they weren't trying to humour him: he'd been feeling useless and listless since he woke up from the Bacta-coma they'd had him in. He was on the run from a force that had managed to destroy three planets in the blink of an eye, but somehow there was never anything for him to do until Finn found himself gazing through a two-way mirror at a utilitarian-looking table and a young woman claiming asylum from the First Order.

A young woman sat at the table. She sat with her back straight, hands resting loosely in her lap, gaze off in the middle distance. Her wrists were bound, but it didn't look like they were uncomfortably tight, and she was still wearing standard issue black under armour. She could have been pulled unexpectedly from her bunk shift, except that her hair was several inches outside of regulation, long enough to stick up in weird directions.

Finn wondered who'd been keeping his hair regulation while he was out. They must have assumed he wore it that way out of preference. A lot of the resistance guys wore their hair kind of long, even longer than Poe or Han did. The defector in the other room looked dishevelled. It was sort of endearing, actually. It suggested she'd been on the run for a while, having desperate adventures, getting into danger. Finn's fondness abruptly turned to annoyance. How could this kid – who might be a First Order spy – look like a rugged adventurer, when he had survived being personally eviscerated by his own Commander and could probably step back into the Finalizer's mess hall without looking out of place? 

He briefly imagined that he'd emerged from his coma with hair in disarray. Maybe with stubble on his chin. In his mind he looked daring rather than just messy. Rakish, even.

He wondered how the guys on Jakku kept their hair. 

The resistance guard who had fetched him cleared her throat, and Finn remembered that he was supposed to be contemplating an interrogation strategy, not personal grooming. He rearranged his face quickly. “I think I have everything I need,” he said. 

 

*

 

Finn slid into the seat across from the possible-ally possible-enemy, and waited for her response. She held his gaze.

 _She doesn't know who I am_ , he realized. 

It was an unexpected thought. He remembered the Stormtrooper calling him a traitor on Takodana. Blaster fire had been flying, chunks of Maz's bar as big as speeders crumbling around them. He'd known Finn on sight. He'd told himself that his face must have been everywhere, 3D holos with TRAITOR in glowing blue letters, squashing down the queasy feeling that he'd recognized the man's voice--

She just wasn't on _The Finalizer_. Fine. Useful intel already. But it meant that he couldn't count on the instant rapport he thought he'd have from a fellow defector; apparently this woman thought he was just another Resistance fighter.

Finn cleared his throat.

 

“So why don't you just tell me what led to you turning up on our doorstep today,” he said, projecting 'I'm a Big Deal' as best as he could.

She narrowed her eyes. “You don't know?”

“Let's say I want to hear it from you,” he replied, easing into his role. He leaned back into his chair, draping an arm over the chairback.

“I'm HD-4251,” she said. Finn nodded. This position wasn't actually that comfortable. “My ship was travelling from the Kuat system when we -”

“Wait.” Finn leaned forwards. “Your ship was in the Kuat system? You're telling me you weren't in pre-cadet conditioning training on _The Relentless_?” 

She hadn't been expecting that. Finn could feel the atmosphere in the room shift almost instantly. He examined HD-4251 as she considered her next words.

 

“How much do you know about the training Stormtroopers go through?”

“Enough.”

“From reports by FN-2187?”

“We have intelligence from him,” Finn allowed. “But our knowledge of the First Order goes beyond that.”

The Stormtrooper nodded, mulling this over. Out of curiosity, Finn continued, “And this FN-2187, he inspired you? Made you see the light? Made the impossible seem real? Or she,” he added, sneakily.

HD-4251 frowned. “They showed it was possible to get out, sure.” She seemed to come to a decision. She leaned forward, fingers splayed on the table in front of her, reflecting Finn's stance.

“What do you know about the First Order's Jedi lore?”

 

*

 

Several hours had passed. Did interrogations usually take this long? Finn's back was aching, annoyingly and unnecessarily, since the Resistance doctors had given him a clean bill of health days ago. If HD-4251 had ever had a nickname from her comrades she wasn't revealing it to Finn, which just went to show how well the interrogation was going. Every time he thought he was getting somewhere in determining whether she was a genuine defector or not, she looped back to talking about spooky Jedi nonsense that Finn had no way of evaluating. He was more than a little relieved when he heard a tap on the door, interrupting HD-4251 mid-sentence.

“I just need to consult with our analysts,” he muttered, ignoring the flash of annoyance in the girl's face and swiftly escaping from the chair. He was pretty sure that this interrogation was becoming way more uncomfortable for him than it was for her. He stepped through the threshold quickly – probably she'd figured out that she was being observed by someone, but he didn't want to reveal by who, when – 

_Rey_.

It was like that first time in the Millennium Falcon, when gravity hung suspended for one endless moment, when everything aligned itself perfectly and Finn took the best god-damned shot of his life. This time within that shining endless moment he felt himself practically leap towards Rey – and she was wrapping her arms around his shoulders – and he became aware of the high-decibel babbling coming from both of them as they circled, grasping each other as hard as they could:

“You came back! Are you alright? I didn't know if I'd ever see you again – how did you get here, I--”

“We flew back at the request of the General, I'm so glad that you're okay, you saved my life!”

 

“I saved _your_ life? I would literally have died after that maniac sliced me up if you hadn't--”

Before he could finish his sentence, Rey pulled him into a tight hug. Finn closed his eyes and forgot to breathe.

“Ahem.”

They snapped apart. It was the Resistance fighter – presumably the one who had knocked on the door, presumably for some other stupid reason apart from the fact that _Rey came back_. Next to her was some sinister looking dude in a hooded cape. Finn instinctively tried to step in front of Rey, but he found her hands were still on his forearms, anchoring him in place.

“Uh, Finn, this is Luke – Master Luke?” she corrected herself, throwing an uncertain look at the old guy's impassive, craggy face. Finn noted the beard and felt okay about staying clean-shaven. “He doesn't do a lot of talking,” she added under her breath.

“You found him?” Finn exclaimed, beaming. Rey beamed back. Finn remembered that he was close to fulfilling his long-ago claim of being a Big Deal in the Resistance and gave the legendary lost Jedi Luke Skywalker a cooly dignified nod. “Master Luke,” he added, by way of greeting. He wondered if he should bow or shake his hand or something, but since Luke still hadn't actually said anything or even actually moved, maybe doing more would go against his Jedi customs. It was kind of creepy. Besides, Rey still had her hands on him and Finn figured that doing anything to break the contact would be rude.

“ _Ahem_.”

The resistance fighter. Finn remembered that unlike Rey and Luke Skywalker, this woman knew that Finn had been given exactly one job to do since Starkiller Base, and that he was currently standing in a walkway instead of doing it. To be fair, he'd been in a coma and then in rehabilitation before then. But he had to play this carefully. “Yes,” _oh god how do I still not know your name_ “officer?”

The woman's eyelids twitched either in appreciation or (more likely) exasperation. “General Oregana has suggested that having a trained Force user with you would expedite the interrogation process.”

Finn's eyes snapped immediately to Rey.

“I am almost certain that the General was talking about Master Skywalker,” the traitor added. 

Finn tried to come up with a reason for Rey to come into the room with him. Rumours had been flying around the base about Rey's abilities. By all accounts she'd fought off Kylo Ren, and Finn had seen himself that she'd been able to escape inside _The Finalizer_ without any help, something that should have been impossible. And she had fought off the thieves on Jakku. She had run down Finn himself, come to think about it, staring at him with fierce, blazing concentration, something you never saw in combat drills when everyone you fought against was wearing the exact same mask. And all of that was before she had these magic powers. Or had she been magic all along?

There was movement behind them. Luke Skywalker was moving. He slowly let down his hood in a gesture that seemed to take about five years and had the gravity of a history holo about the fall of the Glorious Galactic Empire. “Perhaps Rey _should_ accompany Finn.”

Yes! Jedi wisdom!

“You won't regret it, Mister Skywalker. Master Skywalker.” Finn was halfway towards the door already, but he hesitated when realized that Rey hadn't moved. She was looking at Finn in a way that made his stomach sink, though he couldn't have said why.

“Finn,” she began, hesitantly, “why are you – interrogating prisoners?”

Before he could clarify, the Resistance soldier butted in.

“We have it on good authority that as FN-2187, Finn had extensive experience both in observing and assisting in the extraction of information from high-value targets.”

Rey's eyes were blazing. Skywalker's face remained an unnervingly intense rockface: impossible to read. Finn was going to find out this woman's name and then intentionally never use it. Before he could gather his thoughts, Rey took a deep breath, closing her eyes and smoothing her features with apparently some effort.

“Uh,” he began, but some tiny gesture from Skywalker's granite eyebrows silenced him.

“The girl's defection is sincere,” Rey said. Her jaw was tight, her eyes still shut. “She's engaged in some deception to make her appear more valuable, but there's a great deal of good in her.” She opened her eyes. “I need to gather my things,” she added, treated Finn to one last, betrayed look, and retreated back down the walkway.

 

*

 

It didn't take long for Finn to find Rey, which he was grateful for, because he had first hand experience of how fast Rey was and he wasn't sure if his back could handle a full-tilt sprint through a busy military base right now. He caught up to her just by some kind of storeroom. He thought about grabbing for her hand, but decided that even without her staff that might not be the best idea.

“Rey.”

She hesitated, then stopped. “Is it true?”

“Is what true?”

“Finn.” Rey turned slowly to face him. “You have to know how the First Order gets its information from the people it captures. I can't believe that you would really be involved in – hurting people like that.”

That drew him up short. “Whoa, I. Rey. You know I was a Stormtrooper. I --” He stopped, frustrated. “You know me better than anyone. Can't you just use the Force?”

She blinked at him. “What?”

“Like you just did for HD-4251. That was the Force, right?”

Something in Rey softened. “I don't need to.” She sighed deeply and reached for him. “You're a good person, Finn.”

“I woke up and you were gone,” Finn said. He blinked; he hadn't meant to say anything. “Poe and and the little droid were gone. Even Chewvacca -”

“- Chewbacca -”

“- the freakishly strong angry rug, sure. He was gone too. And Solo.” Rey drew closer to him, peering up at him. How could she be that small? He'd always remembered her gazing down at him. “My plan got Solo killed.”

“Your plan destroyed the First Order base.” Finn could feel Rey cautiously wrap her arms around his middle, underneath the leather jacket. She laid her head against his chest. “Your plan saved my life.”

“You were doing pretty good by the time we got there,” Finn said, standing as still as possible, not wanting to push his luck. His heart was pounding. After a moment he felt Rey's shoulders shaking.

“Are you --”

 

Laughing. She was definitely laughing.

“Finn, are you telling me that you were so worried about being alone on a base full of Resistance fighters that you told them all that you were an expert in _torturing Resistance fighters_?”

 

“What can I say?” He huffed out a laugh, settling back into the hug and letting his chin rest against Rey's forehead. “I'm a Big Deal.”


End file.
